Opinion on Jarvis: We Let Our Emotions Get the Better of Us

Interesting viewpoint from the Toronto Standard on the whole Jarvis thing:

People are, of course, entitled to have an emotional response to political issues, and, in many ways, such a response is natural and to be expected. But by allowing emotional responses to dictate the nature of our political discourse, we create a false dichotomy between groups of people. Since its inception as a political issue, the Jarvis bike lane removal has been, almost exclusively, positioned as a debate between cyclists and drivers. In reality, however, the configuration of one of Toronto major arteries is something that affects all of us. After all, roads are the means by which all modes of transportation traverse a city — that is, pedestrians, public transit, cyclists, and, yes, cars all need access to roads to get anywhere. However, when someone claims that a mother’s commute became significantly longer due to a recently installed bike lane, or when someone sits down on a road to protest the removal of a bike lane, what they are doing, in effect, is asserting that their claim to a major road is somehow more legitimate than everyone else’s.